Good luck buddy
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I also had a weird positive surge yesterday. Hoping the best for both of us!
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Mornings have been shit, but evenings are still great for me here. Tonight is the best yet, hoping youāre still doing good.
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Sooooo my streak of abstinence ended. When I have no libido I talk about abstinence like itās so easy, but then I have almost 100% libido back and I walk around with a raging hard-on for 3 nights straight and start to get super angry and be grumpy because Iām holding out, and I just said āfuck itā and went with what my body was telling me to do. I have not felt anger like that in months. Itās not something that I particularly enjoy normally as it makes me snap at people a little when Iām annoyed, but these emotions are part of what makes me, me and itās good to have them back. Yesterday it came back full force along with a wave of general aggression and motivation to get things done at work and at home. Overall a great feeling!
I was watching a video last night and just fell asleep in the middle! That hasnāt happened since this started! I woke up about an hour later and went to bed and got a relatively full night sleep. I was afraid it would mess up my sleep schedule and Iād get very little sleep as Iāve had to stay very regular for months due to my sleep disturbances, but it appears Iām moving past that a bit. Even a month or two ago, something like this mightāve led to a sleepless night. I really feel like the pieces are falling into place. I think Sleep is a big piece too.
I just woke up and I did not crashā¦. Yet. I am lower this morning, like I always am in the morning, but its still the highest morning Iāve had in like 3-4 weeks. I was approaching 100% last night but am only like maybe 80% currently. I am looking forward to another evening upswing. Iām going to try to do my 10 days abstinence now and go lower and lower to see if it makes me crash. Weāll see if I can hold out.
Right now Iām just dealing mainly with some minor emotional blunting, moderate anhedonia, and some anxiety. Life right now is good. Fingers crossed that this will be my new baseline while I work on full recovery.
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Hi everyone,
I decided to do my end of month update today as I have some time. I do not have a good report this month unfortunately. This month on the whole was not great after having such a good November and December. Ever since New Years I have been much more stable but very flat. Every morning is the same and is pretty much crap. I wake up with no motivation or desire to do anything and moderate to severe anxiety.
My sleep however continues to see slow improvements and this month I had only had 1-2 days with less than 6 hours total sleep and had 7 days with sleep 6 hours straight or more. I feel like this is continuously improving just very slowly. I only had one amazing day this month if 6+2 hours. Otherwise Iām always between 6 and 7 hours total sleep. My primary session is pretty consistently 4.5 to 6 hours.
My evenings have been generally just ok with very low anxiety and some light enjoyment of basic things. I have recorded about 13 āgoodā days where enjoyment is higher, but only 8 really good days on the level of where I was in December. With about 4 evenings of close to full recovery.
Sexually, I took steps both backwards and forwards as well. My peak has been lower but my bottom has been higher. I always have no libido in the morning though solid nocturnals. Morning has returned a few days but barely worth mentioning. I have had SOME libido 16 evenings this month. But that just means I can see someone attractive and make myself think about sex to some mild response. I have only had 4-5 days of significant libido return where I really crave sex. Last month I felt like this often.
So overall, more stable. The swings are much smaller. My bottom is not is low but my peaks are less often and not as high. It seems to take 1-2 weeks for another upswing after orgasm/crash right now, so maybe I will have another soon if it follows the same pattern. The only thing that has changed about my routine is that I am no longer exercising as intensely or as often. Ever since my break over the holidays I have not been able to get back into it. Only 12 days this month. Since this is the only thing that changed, Iām preparing to throw myself back into it and hit the exercise hard again and see if it makes a difference.
Iāll rate things best I can taking into average for the month.
- Loss of libido - 4/10 - down from 7. Can response to porn and find women attractive but no real response without some effort.
- Erectile dysfunction - 5/10 was 10. Everything works, but quality varies and responsiveness is generally poor.
- Spontaneous erections - 0/10 Was 4.
- Nocturnal: 8/10 - (recovered). Almost every night. Was 10.
- Morning: 1/10 - still donāt have these for some reason.
- Penile shrinkage: 8/10 was 10, reruns during really bad dips Along with cold testicles.
- Penile pain: 10/10 - (recovered)
- Emotional blunting - 6/10 was 9. Emotions are mostly always there except for extreme dips, just always blunted.
- Lack of motivation - 4/10 was 8.
- Anhedonia - 6/10 I can enjoy some things most evenings, but very lightly only.
- Anxiety - 6/10 -Iām pacing again, but can sit down sometimes to eat and whatnot. Nights are generally ok.
- Unusual stress response - 7/10 - still an issue but I am managing things to be as low stress as possible. Cannot watch very negative media still.
- Depression - 8/10 - rare glimpses of return
- Insomnia - 6/10 generally 6-7 hours per night with some better and some worse. 1-2 awakenings and sessions up to 6 hours.
- Suicidal thoughts - 10/10 (recovered)
Genital numbness - 8/10 - Orgasm quality - 10/10
- Nerve pain - 10/10 (recovered)
- Muscle twitching - 8/10 worse this month.
- Testicular pain - 10/10 (recovered)
- Lowered body temperature - 10/10 (recovered)
- Appetite - 6/10? Difficult to gage as my diet is so different now.
- Dry skin - 8/10 spread to knuckles and fingers.
- Dry eyes - 8/10 fluctuates and does not generally bother me anymore, sometimes I need eye drops.
- Digestion - 7/10 - Much more stabilized and much less noise.
- Loss of aggression - 3/10 - returns sometimes but is mostly absent.
Overall a big step down. Most every day is a struggle again for me although I do have many things to be thankful for. Sleep is restorative mostly again. My family is supportive, I can still work although at reduced capacity, I have some enjoyment and some really good days still. Hopefully stepping back up the exercise will bring back some improvements.
My immediate goals are to improve sleep to 7 hours straight every night and be able to sleep with my family again. I want to improve my anxiety to minimal levels, especially in the morning and get some level of enjoyment in things throughout the day, every day. I want to improve my motivation to get things done to be at least somewhat present at all times. I want to feel happiness more often. Essentially I want to eliminate the bad days and reduce the number of flat days. I want to improve upon my love life with my wife and first shoot for once a week instead of like this month, only twice. Baby steps with the ultimate goal still being full recovery by 40th birthday.
Good luck everyone, I wish you all the best.
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Good luck to you too! Despite all the downs, you already have recovered from many nasty symptoms. Iām sure your improvement will gradually continue.
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So I woke up today for my best morning this month. Iām suddenly back to where I was in December. Having a good morning for me is big. This is my first in almost 4 weeks. Hereās hoping I can string something together.
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So, Iām still doing pretty good and I was thinking again about my promise to try and keep my story as upbeat as possible for those to come after me. Instead of constantly rating everything, which I feel has a bit of negatives mixed in, I want to set some goals for what I want out of life and just try to meet these things. I feel this is a fully positive way to evaluate progress. Here are some immediate and long-term goal thresholds that Iāve set for myself.
Sleep:
- sleep at least 6 hours straight EVERY night
- sleep at least 7 hours straight per night
- sleep is 8 hours per night
- Sleep is pre-fin
- Able to take naps without messing up sleep
- Able to take naps ANYWHERE like before
Current status - 6 hours broken minimum, 4.5 hours minimum main session.
Sex:
- Ability to consistently want/have sex once per week unassisted
- Twice a week
- 3 per week
- Pre-fin (1-2 per day)
Current Status: Can meet 1st goal, but am sometimes scared to and libido is not always there.
Diet:
- Able to eat all vegetables and healthy complex complex carbs again without detriment.
- Able to eat fruits again
- Able to include Bread/Pasta, etc.
- Able to include some small cheat days of skimped sugars, desserts
- Pre-fin
Current Status: Scared to come off my current carnivore diet as Iām making progress. May test in the near future by moving to Mediterranean.
Emotions/Mood/Anxiety:
- No more bad anhedonia days (5 or below)
- No more flat days
- Able to always look forward to and want to play/interact with my kids again.
- To always feel the utter joy their laughter used to give me like before.
- Able to consistently enjoy comedic TV shows again
- Able to consistently enjoy all the shows I used to love (including dark and stressful shows)
- Able to consistently look forward to and get excited about upcoming released shows/movies
- Pre-fin desire to always watch something, even in the background and repeat watch my favorites
- Able to always enjoy video games
- Able to get excited about new releases
- Craving to always play a good game and finish it like pre-fin
- Eliminate depression 100%
- Able to consistently enjoy reading books again
- Pre-fin desire to keep reading and not be able to put a good book down
- Pre-fin desire to look forward to and purchase/collect new released graphic novels
- Able to consistently enjoy my board game hobby as before
- Able to get excited about and look forward to game nights again
- Consistently look forward to new board game releases and want to buy them all like pre-fin!
- Able to relax enough to enjoy painting again and want to do this on regular basis
- Able to desire and enjoy all hobbies as pre-fin!
- Drive to compete and advance in career returns
- Able to comfortably travel with my family for short vacation again by driving and staying in another location
- Able to take longer vacations comfortably driving.
- Able to fly again without stress for work and leisure
- Desire to always improve and work around the house returns
- Able to relax enough to enjoy hot baths like before
Current status: Can sometimes and even often enjoy basic things, but not always.
Overall goal:
- To never have to think about rating my mood or my erections or have to ever think about PFS ever again!
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So, quick update. Abstaining does not seem to prevent dips consistently, but on the flip side orgasms no longer seem to crash me consistently. Still doing much better than January so far, but not quite as good as December in some some aspects although actually better than in December for some. Whereas all my symptoms used to get better at the same time, they seem to be now getting better at more differing rates. I also seem much more stable, for better or worse.
My mental sides continue to be my primary and almost only concern, but Iāve had sex twice unassisted in three days now and no significant crash, so that has to be a good sign. This was driven by genuine libido I might add! Mentally Iām doing ok but could definitely still use some improvements. My anxiety seems much lower lately suddenly which corresponded with my sleep becoming worse, but now sleep seems to slowly be getting better again and anxiety has stayed lower.
This could all flip in an instant tomorrow, but for now Iām doing ok. I have decided itās time to try coming off the carnivore diet that Iām more stable and see how it treats me. Iām going to mostly stay paleo with a few exceptions. I plan to allow some small portion quinoa, oats, and/or rice as I slowly drop my massive daily fat intake and start to increase carbs again.
Youāre an inspiration man. Thanks for trying to keep things positive, it gives me hope.
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Iāve been dead between the legs for a week now, my sleep has been worse and my anhedonia sill sucks, most days are a struggle still. I tried to watch one of my old favorite TV shows, a comedy, last night and couldnāt even laugh whereas before I would be rolling on the floor every time.
However today I woke up with little to no anxiety, had a pretty good morning and took the kids to a park and had one of the most genuinely good times Iāve had. It was fantastic. I think back to about four months ago when I was at the park with my kids and had my brutal 2nd crash and think of where I am now vs then. There is no comparison. Today my libido is back and I feel great, just at peace. I was able to relax enough to take a hot bath and read a book!!! First time in 8 months or so. I feel like I accomplished something, a milestone.
I guess my point is, for those in bad shape, try to hang in there, a good day might be around the corner.
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Glad to hear youāre doing a bit better mate. Perspective is everything with this disease and focusing on the small victories like that can work wonders for you. One day at a time.
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So far coming off the carnivore diet hasnāt seemed to bring any ill effects. I do feel like the carnivore diet helped stabilize me and also has appeared to do wonders for my digestion which was pretty messed up at the start.
I started by opening up all vegetables, then adding quinoa, and now a small handful of berries at each meal. If anything, I actually have started feeling a bit better.
Iām back to the pattern again that started in November where I have shit mornings and sometimes good to great evenings. Lately itās been predictably every other day, one good then one bad. This week, my good days have all been very good. Return of some libido and return of my enjoyment of music! Oh my god, I listened to music all day the other day, it felt so good. I missed that so much for months. My anxiety baseline has lowered dramatically recently. I can actually leave the house now! I even traveled for work in a plane by myself for an overnight stay which was 100% unthinkable even a month ago. I can lay down and relax now, Almost completely. Iāve hit one of my goals for the time being, I enjoy taking hot baths and reading a book again. I hope this pattern holds and I can push to higher recovery from here as life is currently enjoyable in this state, If only every other day.
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This is very similar to my experience. I am eating very low carb. I am eating heavy wholewheat breads often most days, also. It has fibre which I think helps intestines.
Try out making some bone broths. It is a bit of a chore but involves getting animal parts and then cooking them with veg for a day or so. Most countries you can get animal parts from mainstream stores or China-town market stores.
My wife is Vietnamese and bone broth as part of any dish is basically standard!
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Cool stuff mate. I am jealous!
So, decided to do my end of month update today. February was better than January, although many days were still a struggle I had a lot more good days as well. Overall I would say most of my āgoodā days this month were better than any single day in January. Most all my mornings continue to be pretty terrible, but this past week Iāve started to have a few āOKā ones mixed in. My main problem is I cannot seem to link any good days together into a streak like I could in December. Usually only one at a time or at most 2-3 days. I added a column in the spreadsheet log I keep that indicates one thing, good day, neutral or bad day. This month I had 13 good days, so if today or tomorrow turns out to be good, I expect to hit 50%. I also have had significantly less bad days this month.
I think Iāve felt a very distinct change in my mental state this month. Whereas before my bad days were dominated by the awful bottomless pit of pure anhedonia, my bad days now seem to be dominated by anxiety again. I believe my baseline anhedonia level has risen and I now seem to most always have some mild level of enjoyment/interest in things even at my worst. I want to stress MILD, as I still have symptoms of anhedonia, but pure anhedonia is such a horror show that any improvement is welcome.
As examples of what Iām talking about, on my bad days I can usually at least watch a comedy show at night with my wife and enjoy it, or take my kids to the park as have some fun. I play some video games most every night and most of the time look forward to it and have picked up a book to read that Iām interested in. Iām no longer compelled to do these things, but I look forward to them and enjoy them. Before when I would exercise I would try to force myself to listen to something, to have interest in something while I run like I used to, but at my worst the video would pause or skip and I wouldnāt even notice as I had zero interest in listening. That seems no longer the case as I do want to at least listen to something and have varying levels of interest depending on the day. I browse things to listen to occasionally and have a list queued up fo things I can listen to while I exercise now. Pre-fin I would HAVE to listen to something or Iād be very bored, I was compelled. So not normal by any means, I still definitely have fluctuating anhedonia, but it is improved.
Sexually I have some improvements over January as well. I now only do anything when Iām driven by libido, otherwise I just do a mental check to see where Iām at for the day. I will say my peak libido seems to have fallen, but yesterday it almost hit normal for the first time in a while. Of course I woke up this morning and itās gone. I NEVER have any libido in the morning anymore. Possibly due to my horrible morning anxiety. However I have had sex 7 times this month driven by libido as opposed to 2 last month. Clear improvement. The days of hard-flaccid and cold testicles seems to be gone. I always at least find women attractive now to varying levels and can always get it up. Libido is really the main problem I have sexually now.
Sleep wise, not much improvement until this past week where Iāve consistently gotten over 5 hours straight in my primary session for about 5 days now and last night I actually hit 6. I never have trouble going to sleep, but staying asleep and going back to sleep after 5-ish hours is my problem. I weened off my melatonin early in the month and I do think this maybe made it harder for secondary sleep, but it didnāt seem to have any effect on my primary sleep.
Things I changed this month:
- stopped taking melatonin
- changed my diet (only restrictions currently, no bread, pasta, refined sugars). Mostly paleo + quinoa.
- New exercise rotation and increased exercise again. I plan to do heavy cycles of cardio only for like a month (endurance running training, HIIT, etc.) and follow this up with a month or so of heavy weight training with low cardio.
Goals hit:
- Iām able to eat a lot more foods now and enjoy it.
- currently have hit no more bad very bad anhedonia days, I hope this holds.
- enjoy a lot more things consistently I had on my list.
- sexual improvements but not consistent enough with libido to say Iāve hit a goal.
My main goal in coming months is to improve my mornings to be not such a horror show, reduce anxiety overall, improve sleep, further increase enjoyment, and increase frequency of good days. I if every day could be like my best days Iām having currently and I can improve my mornings then I could put this whole thing behind me.
Today feels like a bad day for me, I am an anxious mess with some invasive thoughts of ending it right now (although itās early, still time for improvement!). Right now itās bad, and I know thereās many others in this same state as well or worse. Youāre not alone though, hang in there. Tomorrow could be better.
So, since the start of March I have seen sudden vast improvements almost all around, particularly in my mental symptoms. My anhedonia has improved dramatically along with my anxiety, this is particularly notable in the morning. If this holds, Iām to the point now where I can live my life almost comfortably while I try to recover further.
Sexually, improvements are seen also. Spontaneous erections are back and I have at least some level of libido most all the time now, except the first few hours of the day.
Iām short, have been enjoying my life again. This feels more stable that anything to date. My sleep still sucks and I am not cured, but I am definitely comfortable now saying that I am recovering and I have high hopes for further recovery as time passes.
Only a few things Iāve changed in the past month or so, mainly which is coming off my diet. Iām eating most everything now, just being healthy in general (low refined sugar and processed food, high protein and veggies) which is normal for me. Iāve stopped all supplements and melatonin. I only take 2000 IU of vitamin D per day and my probiotic which I am weaning off of as well. I increased my exercise again, now very high endurance training everyday (running). I ran a 5:27 mile the other day which I havenāt done in about 2 decades. Iām pretty proud of this as I was very out of shape when this started, I was probably at an 8-9 minute mile at that point. I think I can still go sub 5 minute! A new goal for me. I am currently not lifting weights but will switch back to weight lifting heavy regimen in April.
I am not suggesting that you can exercise your way out of this, as I know thatās not an option for many on this forum. However, I do want this to give at least some hope that significant recovery is possible.
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Past week I started falling asleep for short naps early afternoon which I have been unable to do almost entirely since this started. Then last night I fell asleep very early without meaning to (10PM instead of 12-2AM), again something that just hasnāt happened since PFS, and I slept 10.5 hours with some time awake, I was in and out but largely VERY good sleep as I typically fall between 5-6 broken hours, sometimes moving more towards 7.
Then today was a VERY good day for me, I would say 90% mentally maybe more. Fully rested, Anxiety at zero, only lacking a little in libido and interest level to keep me from 100%.
Feels very stable and the good feeling was there from the moment I woke up which NEVER happens. My mornings are always lower than my evenings. I hope this is not leading to a crash. My upswings like this usually do, but maybeā¦. Just maybe this time is different. The two days before this I had started struggling mightily again, so who knows with this thing.
My diet is now fully opened up to any and all foods, even junk food and caffeine occasionally and it seems to have no effect on me. I have upped my distance running lately. I have not been doing any HIIT anymore, only tempo runs and longer endurance runs. Minimum 3 miles, maximum of 7-8 miles. I sometimes do 800m repeat interval training as well. Always full sun with shirt off.
All in all, although I am still having days where I struggle and question the relevance of my life as a tired, anxious, depressed mess, I am having a lot of decent and good days and the arrow seems to continue to point up. Last month I had sex 7 times, Iāve already hit that mark this month. So far in March - anxiety much lower, Sleep improved, mornings GREATLY improved. Fingers crossed I can keep this going.
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Great to hear @Henchman21. Is there any one thing you could attribute much of your improvements to?
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